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The Development of a Series of Cast Metal Sculpture Using the Lost Wax Process

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The Development of a Series of Cast Metal Sculpture Using the Lost Wax Process Central Washington University ScholarWorks@CWU All Master's Theses Master's Theses 1967 The Development of a Series of Cast Metal Sculpture Using the Lost Wax Process Ernest C. Reynolds Central Washington University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/etd Part of the Sculpture Commons Recommended Citation Reynolds, Ernest C., "The Development of a Series of Cast Metal Sculpture Using the Lost Wax Process" (1967). All Master's Theses. 746. https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/etd/746 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Master's Theses at ScholarWorks@CWU. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@CWU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. :~ ..... ~ ,.. : THE DEVELOP:MENT OF":~''SERIES OF CAST METAL SCULPTURE USING THE LOST WAX PROCESS A Thesis Presented to The Graduate Faculty Central Washington State College In Partial Ful.fillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts by Ernest C. Reynolds June 1967 i'~ ~ ·. •. > • .,_, ;,. ~· r·, i ~' ! . f e°l 'ti'~ .£. tll.g a1 APPROVED FOR THE GRADUATE FACULTY ________________________________ Christos J. K. Papadopoulos, COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN _________________________________ Louis A. Kollmeyer _________________________________ Donald P. Tompkins ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my appreciation ror the help and encouragement given by Christos J. Papadopoulos, Dr. Louis A. Kollmeyer, and Donald P. Tompkins in the prep­ aration or this thesis. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. INTRODUCTION • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 1 The Problem. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 2 Statement of the problem • • • • • • • • • • • 2 Scope and limitation of the problem. • • • • • 2 Importance of the Study. • ••••••••••• 3 Method of Procedure. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 7 II. A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ON LOST WAX CASTING • • 8 Introduction • • • • • • • • • • . • • • • • • 8 Lost Wax Process • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 9 Materials, tools, and equipment. • • • • • • • 9 III. DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROBLEM ...... • • • • • • • 14 Construction of the Foundry. • • • • • • • • • • 14 A Sculpture Series Related to Concepts and Philosophies. • • • • • • • • • • 15 IV. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS •••• • • • • • • • • • • 40 BIBLIOGRAPHY • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 42 LIST OF PLATES • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 44 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The desire for self-expression is, with some, almost as strong as the need for food, love, or warmth. This desire for selr-expression may take many forms. When manifesting itselr in the manipulation of form and material, as in the case of sculpture, self-expression alone is not enough. There is always the need to conquer new materials and tech­ niques in order to find new ways of expressing concepts and philosophies about form and the aesthetic possibilities that other media do not arford. This, then, is the situation in which I find myself. I need a material that will bend to my will, that will more readily express the depths and breadths of vital personal concepts and philosophies. Based upon several years of working and teaching in the area of art, I have been developing ideas and opinions about form, the origin of form, the function of form that now need to be organized, developed, subjected to the test of criticism, and then stated as personal concepts. For instance, I have formulated quite positive views regarding organic form as the origin of form and the inter-relation­ ship of positive form and negative form. The need to explain these views and to demonstrate them is the personal reason I am involved in the pursuit of 2 this thesis. In the following chapters I will endeavor to develop these ideas further and, through this paper and the executed works, make them clear. I. THE PROBLEM Statement of ~ Problem. The purpose of this pro­ blem is twofold. First, I reel impelled to make a personal statement regarding rrry philosophies about form, and secondly to explore the possibility or relating negative and positive form as a sculptural unity in bronze casting. Scope ~ Limitation E£_ ~ Problem. The problem consists or producing a series or sculptures demonstrating a personal philosophy regarding rorm in general and negative form and positive rorm, specifically, as they relate to aes­ thetic expression. These pieces are primarily in the lost wax (cire perdue) process, cast in nonferrous metals. Two additional pieces, one each in stone and in direct plaster, will be carried out. Initially, it is planned to complete two pieces by the lost wax process that demonstrate the con­ ventional interpretation or rorm both for the purpose or contrast and ror the purpose or clarifying some or the pro­ blems and techniques or hollow cast sculpture using the lost wax process. 3 II. IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY I have already mentioned a desire for selr-expression, the need to develop new concepts, philosophies, and ideas, and to express these new mental-emotional developments in a tangible and concrete way. These mental, emotional, and spiritual developments are the growth that gives living to lire and importance to the development and execution of this problem. It is important at this time to explain something of the concepts or ideas that I have been developing these past few years. In the process of living and growing one is con­ tinually, though sometimes unconsciously, exposed to the existence and happenings of the world around him. As long as I can remember I have always worked with form in a sculptural manner. Most of that time, what I did with form was perhaps instinctive but more positively the direct result of instruc­ tions I had received about sculptural form. Form was a three dimensional solid that could be manipulated but to me it was still just a three dimensional solid as a house, a brick or an animal. My first attempts to ponder form in order to find in it more meaning, more reality, more universality, was to consider what, specifically, was the origin of form. Just as motion, heat, light, and growth have their foundation in energy, so too, I reasoned, there nmst be some fundamental source of form. 4 I was exposed to the concept that ":form :follows :func- tion," an idea that originated early in this century at the Bauhaus in Germany. The idea seemed well suited to architec­ ture and industrial design. But there were those who :felt the concept could be adapted to the :fine arts. I can still remember being urged to consider the :function when I was dealing with :form. The results were :rar :from satis:factory and always quite mechanical. In order to resolve this situ­ ation I began what might be called an "education through observation." I began to look more closely at the world around me and :round innumerable relationships in :form I had never be:f ore noticed. Forms I had thought peculiar to the animal world I :round continually repeated in the plant world. Large geological :rorm.ations as well as microscopic geologi- cal structures I :round repeated in dri:rt wood, water pat­ terns, and cloud :formations. Everywhere I :round nature repeating itsel:r over and over again. I am not speaking here o:r the novelty dri:rtwood pieces that look "like" a duck or deer or something else, or the wood grain patterns, or cloud patterns in which one can see a :race or a ship. I am speaking o:r the more basic :forms out o:r which bigger things are made. An example might be the whorled grain o:r a burl which is seen again in the growing tips o:r :ferns, the spiraling pattern o:r specular hematite, or in an eddy o:r water. The :rorm. a growing plant takes at the point where a stem 5 grows out of a twig, a twig out of a limb, a limb out of the trunk may be seen where a finger grows out of a hand or an arm out of a shoulder. The examples are countless but these few should indicate the type of relationships of form to which I refer. Forms that are "inherent in the basic character or structure" (10:1590) of the world around us, it would seem, are organic in nature and therefore must certainly be the point of departure in the creation of form. For me, then, the origin of all form can be found in organic form--those forms found in nature in animal, vegetable and mineral sub­ stances. In addition to my thinking on "organic form," I have been more recently concerned with the concept of the rela­ tionship of negative form to positive form. In the past, all sculpture of a traditional nature, whether carved in wood or stone or cast in bronze, has been treated as solid form or an assemblage of forms that may or may not have openings between the forms or parts of the form. Form has been treated as an inpenetrable mass without an inside. The solid portions were considered to be positive form while the spaces in between were called negative form. Because of the nature of the material, this is perhaps as it should be when working stone and wood. However, when one is making a mold, the inside of the mold, that surface which is next to the 6 positive rorm or the model, has traditionally been rererred to as the "negative." It is an exact reversal or the posi­ tive rorm. By the same token, in photography the negative is the direct opposite or the positive. As I considered these racts I began to wonder ir it was possible to create another dimension in sculpture and a new meaning ror nega­ tive rorm. Could one emphasize in a piece or sculpture the positive or outside rorm and at the same time consider the inside or that positive rorm? This would seem to be possible. The negative rorm is more than just the spaces lert between positive rorms, i.e.
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